First, there’s terror, then there’s blood. What comes after blood you ask? Why, death, of course, as Ahoy Comics gathers up the finest and funniest frightful fables, narrated by the saddest and drunkest ghost poet of our times in Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Death. Collecting all six issues under the watchful eyes of editor Tom Peyer, Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Death, warns readers to beware of “the creepy monsters on your cereal box! A spine-tingling senator/werewolf! A scary chess-playing robot! Death himself!” and more. Here, Peyer is back at WWAC to tell us us about this latest collection.
How do you pull together the creative teams for the various stories?
A writer will pitch us, and if we like it we’ll commission a script. When the script is in and we’ve read it, and it’s good, we start thinking about artists whose skills and sensibilities would be a good match for the story’s mood, character, and action. Usually, we’re able to interest our first choice, but even our second and third choices are pretty excellent.
You’re writing as well as editing again in this collection. Tell us a bit about your story in the anthology and its inspiration.
I’ve written a story for every volume of Poe, and each time I challenge myself to make it dumber than the last one. I don’t want to brag, but I think I’ve succeeded. I love comics, and I love that they’re so deeply rooted in junk—disposable entertainment with no higher aspirations. That’s what Superman was, that’s what Batman was. I always want to do work that nods to junk. With Poe, I can not only nod, but grab both of junk’s hands and shake them vigorously up and down.
I love that the director Roger Corman would make these cheap, fast, kind-of-trashy movies out of Poe’s stories because they were old and free to use. So I always think of him. I wanted to do something with the vintage Universal Monsters, who I love, and I thought the second most junky title I could give it would be “Gore of Frankenstein”, and the most junky title would be “Edgar Allan Poe’s Gore of Frankenstein, because, of course, Poe had nothing to do with any of it. We’re just exploiting his name.
Poor Poe remains sad and drunk as he narrates these adventures. Will our poor poet ever get some therapeutic support?
If you go back and read him, Poe used very long sentences. I wouldn’t want to subject a therapist to that.
Can we expect more plundering of Poe’s work for more Snifter series?
Right now, we don’t know. But we just might be working on some top-secret anthology plans that don’t include Poe at all. Which is what he deserves.
Check out this preview of the series, featuring Peter’s own story, “Gore of Frankenstein,” illustrated by Greg Scott, with colors by Lee Loughridge and letters by Rob Steen.
